Hive of activity: the Coulsdon Community Centre, home of the Theatre Workshop Coulsdon, where preparations are going on for The Sweet Science of Bruising
KEN TOWL got a behind-the-scenes preview of the next production from Coulsdon’s acclaimed theatre group, which he says will be a real knock-out
In December, when I went to the Coulsdon Community Centre, I saw a great performance of My Fair Lady but I left my favourite hat on my seat.
On Sunday, I went round to collect it and found myself in the middle of the hive of activity that is Theatre Workshop Coulsdon’s “set-build Sunday”, an early stage in the group’s preparation for their next show, a tale of Victorian lady boxer.
In one corner, huge white bloomers were being sewn, in another a large wooden frame that would one day be a set was being worked on. Parts of Victorian London from My Fair Lady were being cannibalised to make parts of Victorian London for The Sweet Science of Bruising. The actress who had last month been Eliza Doolittle was busy marketing the next show on a laptop, and Anya Destiney offered me a cup of tea.
Destiney is the director of The Sweet Science of Bruising and it was her I had come to see.
I was killing two birds with one stone, collecting my titfer while getting the tattle on the new show. Destiney is not new to directing. She took the helm for TWC’s Machinal three years ago and pulled off an ambitious staging of a relatively obscure piece of expressionist theatre, not at all the usual amdram fare.
Now she has another challenge.
The Sweet Science of Bruising is playwright Joy Wilkinson’s tale of four women, corseted both literally and metaphorically by Victorian patriarchal society, who find empowerment in the boxing ring. It is not all a bed of roses, of course. This particular road to female empowerment is bound to involve a few punches on the way.
How, I asked Destiney, did she envisage the fight scenes? If she pulled her actor’s punches too much, the scenes would be lame. But if they really laid into each other, like Robert De Niro in Raging Bull, they might end up doing serious damage.
Destiney said she was planning a combination of techniques, some realism, some bouts more abstract, with much of the action suggested through lighting and sound, putting the audience inside the protagonists’ heads. On top of this, the actors had benefited from a stage fighting workshop, had learned “how to realistically sell a punch”.
Was there a danger, I asked, that a play about women getting punched might look exploitative? Destiney was way ahead of me here, explaining that the exploitative nature of boxing was explored in the play, that the play was nuanced and did not shy away from serious adult themes.
Setting the scene: members of Theatre Workshop Coulsdon were hard at work last weekend, preparing the stage for their next show
Set against this was the fact that these women were exploited anyway, but at least in the ring they were taking some agency over their lives. The character ‘The Professor’ is on one level a champion of the women, providing them with platform, and on the other he is exploiting them for profit.
Why come and see it? Because, said Destiney, the struggle continues. There are still advances to be made and boxing in the play is symbolic of perseverance. Because it will be a high-energy performance, despite its sombre tone. There are elements of dark humour, too.
I liked the sound of the stripped-back set, too, and the costumes, a mix of authentic Victorian and stylised steampunk, as well as the artfully created music, a theme for each character with variations to suggest mood and heighten suspense.
I came away from the busy community centre feeling privileged to have had some insight into all of the creativity and hard work that have to gel to make theatre come to life. I look forward to seeing The Sweet Science of Bruising on its opening night in March.
I think it will be good. I’ll eat my hat if it isn’t.
More by Ken Towl:
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